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Against the lavender wall to the right, two petite sculptural works by Karla Black are paired with the work of long-established painter, Regina Bogat. With shared palettes of playful pastel pinks and warm yellows, the soft textures of Black’s From Found and That Time create a contrast to the rhythmic structure of Bogat’s precisely painted wood dowls and excited brush strokes that compose Garden of the Last Empress.

A prolific abstract painter, Regina Bogat has been relatively overlooked in the history of American Abstract Expressionism. In 1959, Bogat was the only woman artist working in the famous Bowery Studio Building in Chelsea, New York with now notable contemporaries Mark Rothko, James Brooks, and Ray Parker. After decades of exploring hard-edge geometric abstraction and unconventional materials, such as cords and wooden sticks, Bogat began incorporating a more gestural approach into her work in the 1990s. Much of this shift can be attributed to her extensive travels through China in the mid-1980s, which had a profound influence in her art and life. From her energetic mark-making to her use of color, Bogat began experimenting and paying homage to new techniques, knowledge, and influences gained from her trip. Her brushstrokes took on a renewed vigor and importance, the sticks that previously were utilized in a rigid fashion were freer in directional placement or abandoned, all together.

Throughout her extensive career Bogat invokes strong and brave women in her abstract works. With this 1990 painting, she celebrates the power of the last woman to prominently rule China, Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty who reigned supreme from 1861 until her death in 1908. Shortly after her death, on January 1^st, 1912, the last child emperor of the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, and the Republic of China was declared. The Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing that served as a summer resort for the Empress Dowager (or Empress Mother) during the last 20 years of her life, offered connection and inspiration for Bogat’s painting. Garden of the Last Empress displays loose, spirited strokes that dance across the canvas creating a vibrant background interrupted by nine systematically patterned wooden dowls that alternate in a rhythm of color. The dowls are a possible nod to the governing structure implemented by the late empress during her 47 years of power.

Mirroring the unfettered energy of Bogat’s painting, Scottish contemporary artist Karla Black’s practice explores ideas of play and early childhood learning, finding inspiration in the primitive, creative moment when art comes into being. With materials of paper, pigment, eyeshadow, and wool, her sculptures employ everyday substances in combination with materials traditionally identified with art making. She intuitively manipulates and sculpts these items into abstracted forms that reveal the artist’s touch, evident in the finger-sized indents seen in the florets of That Time. The delicate arrangement suspended from thin white thread, is reminiscent of cherished dried flowers; the muted colors of the eye shadow used as pigment presents a sense of fading over time. Black’s sculptures are often full of contradictions, for instance From Found, suspended from the ceiling, appears as light and fluffy as a cloud or sweet falling cotton candy. Painted wool paired with a solid clay interior body, gives form and weight to this seemingly shapeless pastel-colored object.